


sirens call my name like ghosts

by ohallows



Category: Rusty Quill Gaming (Podcast)
Genre: (think like around 166?), Angst, Canon Compliant, Dialogue Heavy, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Introspection, Missing Scene, Survivor Guilt, mention of canon MCD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-09
Updated: 2020-12-09
Packaged: 2021-03-09 20:54:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,435
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27982614
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohallows/pseuds/ohallows
Summary: Zolf has a question, and he doesn’t know how to ask it.
Relationships: Amelia Earhart & Zolf Smith
Comments: 3
Kudos: 13





	sirens call my name like ghosts

**Author's Note:**

> i’m sure this has been done before but i can’t remember reading one so shrugs. apols if it hews close to smth else i genuinely haven’t read one of these so 
> 
> i just think they should talk! also i hc that zolf’s mum was also in the harlequins bc fuck the idea that only men can be anarchists fighting against a corrupt system

Zolf has a question, and he doesn’t know how to ask it.

Earhart, as always, is more perceptive than he gives her credit for. Or he’s just less subtle than he thinks. Both are true, if he’s being honest with himself, which doesn’t make him feel better but also doesn’t make him feel worse. Mostly.

He’s rattling through the summary of the day, listing out all the repairs that Cel needs to do on the engine and getting Earhart up to speed on the next steps they should take to navigate around the Northern Wastes when Earhart interrupts him.

“Go on, Mr. Smith,” Amelia says in the middle of one of his reports, sighing as she leans back in her chair. The paper she’s ruffling don’t actually have anything of interest on it - Zolf knows, he  _ taught  _ her that move back in Paris, and also? They’re boring shipping manifests that don’t have any bearing on their own journey. Zolf already read them. So this pretense of being busy is just that - a pretense.

Still, it’s one that both her and Zolf  _ want  _ her to keep, so he isn’t going to call her on it. Not yet, at least. 

Anyways, the point is that she called him on the fidgeting with a question, and Zolf  _ does  _ have something he wants to ask. He’s just… not sure how it’s going to come across, yet. Or how to ask it, even. 

“Well?” Amelia says, raising an eyebrow. “I would say I don’t have all day, but…” 

She gestures vaguely around herself, indicating the entire world, and, er, yeah, she does have a point. Nowhere to really go on the ship, not much work to do beyond making sure Cel is handling the repairs (which Zolf handles), making sure Hamid is making progress on the maps (which Zolf manages), and making sure the crew is on time for shift (which Zolf oversees.) Earhart’s got a lot more free time than Zolf thinks she’s ever had, considering.

“Sorry, Captain,” Zolf says, falling back into the comfort of formality, of structure. 

… But he still doesn’t know what to say. It’s just - it’s rather out of the blue, right, it’s not - not a thing that  _ most  _ people ask, or something that most people would  _ want  _ to answer, but Zolf and Amelia are so far outside the bounds of what’s normal that Zolf is wondering if maybe this won’t be as much of a shock as he’s expecting it to be. And maybe… maybe, for this  _ particular  _ conversation, formality and structure won’t be the things that help him. 

“Permission to speak freely?” he asks instead, sitting down in the chair across from her. Amelia eyes him warily, setting down the papers in her hands.

“Is this a conversation I need to prepare for?” she responds, already reaching toward a drawer that won’t have the bottle of whiskey she’s looking for. She seems to notice halfway through the grab, and although her face screws up in a frown, she doesn’t comment on it. 

Zolf shakes his head. “No,” he says, and then pauses. “Well, I don’t think so. Not really. I mean, I guess it depends on… your perspective? 

He trails off, and can’t blame Amelia for still watching him through narrowed eyes filled with a mix of suspicion and curiousity.

“Is it about the aurora?” Zolf shakes his head. “The kobolds?” He shakes his head again. “The mutiny that you didn’t plan on telling me about?” A shake, and then a pause.

“I didn’t realise you... knew about that,” Zolf says, and Amelia snorts. 

“It’s  _ my  _ ship, Mr. Smith. And you’re a terrible liar,” she says, pointing at him. 

Zolf sits up a bit, affronted. “Excuse me, I -“

“Please don’t get all up in arms about it,” Amelia adds, looking weary. “I mean, come  _ on,  _ I ask about you being on my side, and you come back with some cryptic nonsense? Textbook stuff, here.”

Zolf leans back, almost feeling stung. “Well, sorry I didn’t go to the Harlequin school of deception? And I - the  _ point  _ was that I wasn’t trying to lie, but - you know, nevermind, yeah, sure. Get better at lying. Gonna add that to the to-do list.”

“Good. It helps in more situations than you think.”

“I was being - ugh. Okay. Can I ask my question now?” he asks, and Amelia gestures for him to go ahead, thankfully  _ sans _ commentary this time. Zolf swallows and nods. He opens his mouth to say something, but the words don’t come to his mouth, and the question lodges in his throat. 

“Spit it out, Zolf,” Amelia finally says, setting her hands down gently on the desk and reverting to first names in an explicit show of giving him permission to do the same. “You can ask anything, and either I’ll answer or I’ll throw you out, but you  _ can  _ ask it.”

“Okay. Fine. You said you knew my parents? And my… brother,” he says, hesitant as anything, and the moment of silence that follows stretches, going on for hours in Zolf’s own head when it couldn’t be longer than a few seconds, in truth.

“Ah,” Amelia says, eyes closing for a moment as she nods in understanding. “I was wondering when you’d want to chat about them.”

“You were - wait, what?”

“Honestly, I thought you would have asked back in Paris,” Amelia adds, and Zolf ducks his head, hands clenching into fists in his lap.

“I wasn’t really… in a place to hear about it, back then,” he mumbles, chewing on the inside of his cheek. “Not with… everything else.”

She gives him - well, it’s not a sympathetic smile, but it is an understanding one. Zolf doesn’t want her pity, but he’ll take her understanding. He’s still not making eye contact with Amelia, instead opting to stare at one of the things hanging from her ceiling. Amelia sighs and leans forward as well, the wood of her chair creaking slightly.

“I should have been more clear, back then. I didn’t know your parents firsthand, just… their legends, I suppose.” She winces. “That sounds - I didn’t mean for it to come out like that, really. They weren’t legends as much as they were… admired? So I knew a bit about them, from different sources. Some of the people I ferried would ask about them, or swap war stories… I mean, your dad was never on the front  _ lines  _ or anything, but he, uh. Had a heavy hand in a lot of the Harlequin work, oh… say, sixty years ago? Maybe eighty. So many people said different times, I can’t remember.”

“That sounds about right,” Zolf says slowly. “Feryn weren’t much older than I was, and my dad had left the Harlequins before either of us were born, best I can figure.”

Amelia nods in agreement.

“I only ever heard stories of your dad. He left long before I joined up, but everyone knew about the great Hirald Smith,” Amelia explains, looking out of the window. “He was a big part of the group, but I’m sure you aren’t surprised to hear he wasn’t much for recruiting, your dad.”

Zolf laughs. “No,” he agrees. “No, he was… never one for talking, much.”

Amelia shakes her head, fondly. “He kept to himself, more than anything else. I mentioned he was a brilliant tactician - some of the older folks would talk about him, mention how sad they were to see him go. Man had a brain for strategy like no one I’d ever heard of. The Harlequins probably would have been snuffed out without your dad keeping them constantly moving.”

“Why - why were they trying to keep out of the spotlight so much?” Zolf asks, swallowing around the lump in his throat. He doesn’t want to break down yet, not before he can get answers to his questions. “I know the Meritocrats don’t like the Harlequins, but I thought that they still let them operate. At least within boundaries.”

Amelia frowns, looking trouble. “As I’ve heard it, Anti-Meritocratic sentiment was on the rise after those Enlightenment bastards decided to try and nail them to a door, which backfired spectacularly. Your dad was a key part of the reason why the Harlequins didn’t go down with the rest of the dissenters in those days.”

“I... didn’t know any of that,” Zolf says. He knew that the Meritocrats were more tyrannical than they wanted everyone to think, but that was only… two hundred years ago. “It’s not in any of the history books.”

Amelia shrugs. “You know as well as all of us - well, nearly all of us,“ she amends, gingerly poking at a map that Hamid had brought her earlier, “that the Meritocrats don’t want anything to tarnish their reputation as benevolent rulers. The Meritocrats were happy enough to let us exist when we weren’t challenging the status quo, but when that changed and we became more outspoken? That’s when we all had to, uh. Go underground, as it were. It became very unpopular to be associated with us, and that’s why your parents left. Hard to have kids in that life, and both of them wanted a family. The, uh - the town you moved to is one of the safe havens for Harlequins who’d wanted to leave that portion of their life behind. Wouldn’t be shocked to hear that you’d been rubbing elbows with ex-Harlequins all your life, really.”

It’s… strange to think about. That his parents, his  _ brother,  _ had this entire other life that Zolf had never known about. He feels a bit lost, if he’s being honest, and the ring on his finger feels heavier than ever.

“Your mum…” Amelia says, smiling faintly. “She handled the books better than anyone the Harlequins have had since, or so I’m told. Managed the whole organisation, really. Sent funds out to the different chapters, helped to get things sorted. 

“No one had a bad word to say about her, Zolf,” she adds. “Not a one.”

Zolf chokes up at that, because, yeah, his mum was the best, and he misses her so  _ much  _ sometimes. He wishes he could have told her how much he regrets having run off, how sorry he was for  _ all  _ of it, but getting the letter of her passing while he was off at sea without a hope of coming home anytime soon had ruined any thoughts he’d had of seeing her again. 

“And Feryn?” he asks, dabbing at his eyes. Amelia doesn't comment, but he thinks that he can see the faint shimmer of tears in her own eyes as well.

“Knew him more,” she says. “We met… oh, a while ago. Lose track of the time, you know? I was young, just started flying, and the Harlequins needed a supplier. I liked their style, they liked my skills, and we came to an agreement. Been working with them ever since.

“He was a good man,” she adds, with a smile that looks like it’s miles away. “Kind. Just… good.”

Zolf swallows, staring at the window like it will help keep the tears at bay. “Yeah,” he whispers, voice rough and thick with emotion. “Yeah, he - he was.”

He can still feel Feryn’s hand in his hair, as though he’s there ruffling it. He was a good brother. Zolf never wanted to go into the family business, and Feryn knew that better than anyone. He tried to encourage Zolf to break away, stood up for him to their dad when Hirald was upset about Zolf spending too much time on the coast. 

“Why didn’t any of them... tell me?” he asks. “It’s a legacy thing, right? Generations and such?”

Amelia doesn’t respond for a bit, tilting her head side to side as she considers the question. 

“Yes and… no,” she says. “Over the years, it’s gotten a bit more complicated than that. Originally, the Harlequins were meant to be for thieves. A… guild of sorts, I suppose. Why’d you ask about them now, anyway?”

“The anniversary is coming up,” Zolf mutters, and swallows as he stares outside the window. Ever since he left the cult, being in the air has been as easy as breathing. He isn’t going to complain - he’d not wanted a repeat of the first airborne trip that they’d had as a group. 

“Of… your parents? Or Feryn?”

And there it is, the shame curling around his chest and cutting through his skin. “Feryn. Er. I don’t… I was. Gone. When my parents… passed. I’d already joined up by that point, and. Well, news doesn’t come often when you’re out at sea. I didn’t hear about it until a few months after it had happened.”

Amelia looks like she wants to say something else, and for a moment Zolf is terrified that she’s going to reach out to him and pat him on the shoulder or, worse, the hand, but she ends up just folding her arms on the table.

“Sorry,” she says, quiet. “How’d it happen? If you want to talk about it.”

The offer is left open, and for a moment, Zolf wants to shut it down, wants to end the conversation and move on and let guilt lie where it lays, but… well, no one else really  _ gets _ it. Amelia knows about guilt, knows how it  _ digs  _ into you and leaves scratch marks and scars that never truly fade, and Zolf thinks she might be the only person who won’t pity him at the story.

“Accident,” Zolf says, swallowing around the lump in his throat. “My fault. Kicked out at a beam in the mines, it caved in. He. Er. He saved me, really. And… then I left.”

Gods. Zolf misses him so much. It’s gotten easier, as the years have passed, but it never fully goes away. He hadn’t been lying to Amelia about that; guilt is something that sits on your shoulder, in your chest, forever, even if it gets lighter as you go along. Zolf can still see the look on Feryn’s face as he’d shoved Zolf away while the rocks fall.

“It’s compressing, isn’t it?” Amelia says, quiet, and there’s an edge of bitterness to her voice. “The guilt.”

Zolf swallows again. “I couldn’t stay there. Every time I looked at the mine, it were like I was  _ choking  _ on dirt and rock and it just - it was  _ stifling.  _ I couldn’t breathe, and everywhere I turned, there was  _ something  _ that reminded me of him. Reminded me that it was my  _ fault,  _ that my brother was  _ gone… _ the sea helped me. Forget, I suppose. Work through the trauma a bit.”

Amelia doesn’t say anything for a moment, tapping her fingers atop the desk as she turns, staring out of the window and watching the clouds that pass them by.

“This ship… it feels like a cage, sometimes,” she confesses, with a complicated look on her face. “I know it’s not completely the same - Cel changed most of it up before the trip, but I recognise enough of it for it to feel like a prison. The walls close in on me when I get too… deep in my thoughts. When I see a scorch mark, or a stain that someone was meant to clean up, or the crew’s quarters… I’m thrown back into it. As though it’s that day, and I’m stumbling away from a wreck of a ship and leaving everyone who ever trusted me behind.”

“Amelia,” Zolf starts, but she cuts him off.

“What I’m saying,” she emphasizes, turning back to face him with a hard look on her face, “is that I understand. How it feels to have that guilt weighing you down. And I’m sorry it’s burdened you too.”

They lapse into a… well, Zolf doesn’t want to call it a comfortable silence, not with all the emotions laid out on the table between them. It’s more like an understanding silence, the quiet between two soldiers who have seen too much and know that they can’t stop going yet. There’s a camaraderie there, an unspoken bond that Zolf feels with Amelia, even if neither of them will acknowledge it.

It’s… kind of nice, actually. To have that support and understanding, without the judgment and the pity. 

“Sasha founded them,” he says eventually, because he thinks that she deserves to know, of anyone. “The Harlequins, I mean, not - not anything else.”

Amelia blinks at him, and Zolf remembers that time travel isn’t something that most people consider all in a day's work, actually.

“It’s… a long story,” he says, and rubs at the back of his neck. “Maybe some other time I can... fill you in. Er. It’s. It’s hard. To talk about her, sometimes.  _ Most  _ times, really, er - but, er - I… wasn’t there. Azu would do a better job. Or Hamid.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Amelia says. “I liked Sasha. She had this… spirit within her. Never thought it would break.”

Zolf laughs, but it’s edged with tears and bitterness. “Don’t think it did. I didn’t... stick around to watch.” It’s a guilt that still weighs on his shoulders, something that he doesn’t think he’ll ever be able to shake.

“I was sad to see she wasn’t with your group. When you showed up in that hotel,” she says, and Zolf swallows heavily.

“Yeah,” he says, voice thick with the same unshed tears that always rise to the surface whenever someone brings Sasha up. “I was, too.”

Amelia sighs and reaches under the desk, pulling up a flask. “Gods, what I wouldn’t give for some whiskey right now,” she mutters, and unscrews the top. She pulls out two cups, identical in shape and size, and pours water from her flask into them. “It‘s not alcohol,” she says, handing one of the cups over to him. “But needs must and all, and I think this deserves a toast.  _ They _ deserve a toast.”

Zolf takes the cup from her; he’s proud of his hands not shaking. 

“Right,” Amelia says, and holds her cup up. “I’m not one for giving overly emotional speeches, and I’m sure Zolf isn’t one for hearing them. So I’ll keep this brief. Hirald, you were a damn good Harlequin, and I’m sure a finer father. Gertenz, you were a tough one, and you deserve to have your name remembered through the ages. Feryn, you were idealistic and wanted to help people, and you were gone log before it should have been your time. 

“... And to Sasha,” Amelia ends, voice going thick with emotion. “For giving us a reason to keep going.”

Zolf doesn’t even try to hide the tears this time as he knocks his cup against Amelia’s and takes a swig of water. 

“Now, Mr. Smith, go make sure that my ship hasn’t exploded in your absence,” Amelia orders, but less in a “go do this now” way and more in a “I’ve had many emotions today and I’d like to be alone with my thoughts” way. Zolf gets it. He feels like that a lot too, sometimes.

“Aye, Captain,” he says, with a stiff little bow. 

Amelia waves him off, and Zolf begins to head out, setting the cup down on the edge of the table.

“Am - Captain,” he adds, pausing just before he shuts the door. Amelia looks up, and there’s a hint of  _ something  _ in her eyes that he doesn’t know how to read. Camaraderie, maybe. 

“Please don’t say something sappy, Mr. Smith,” she says, and Zolf can’t quite fight back the smile.

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” he says, and grips the edge of the door tightly in his hand. “Just wanted to say thanks. For the… drink, and for the memories. It’s, er. Appreciated.”

Amelia inclines her head. “Noted. Thank  _ you  _ for the time, and the information. Maybe you are a good first mate.”

A ghost of a smile flicks across Zolf’s face as he steps out. “I’m a great first mate,” he shoots back through the doorway.

Amelia just waves him off, and Zolf shuts the door quietly behind him. He feels… lighter might not be the right word, exactly, but at the same time, it seems like the only word that fits. He glances down at the ring, twisting it in the dim light until the spade shines, reflecting the lamplight. Feryn would be proud of him, he thinks, as he runs his thumb across the insignia.

An explosion goes off above his head, followed by some angry shouting that doesn’t seem urgent and Zolf takes a deep breath, cantering himself before going to yell at, probably, either Meerk or Carter, because it’s  _ definitely  _ one of those two.

Back to work.

**Author's Note:**

> hi i’m sad abt feryn
> 
> also this fic officially tips me over into having over 1M words on ao3 which is. terrifying and strange but! hey here we are.


End file.
